Ukraine refugee makes way to Tinley Park
She escaped Chernihiv to stay with family after hospital bombing killed her husband
The last time Marharyta Nahornaia spoke to her husband, Nikolai, was about 12:15 p.m. March 3, before the bombs hit the hospital where she worked in Chernihiv, Ukraine.
Nahornaia, who goes by Rita, made it to the U.S. on Aug. 1 and has been staying with her nephew in Tinley Park, serving as a nanny to his son. While she’s thankful to be with family, Nahornaia said she still feels home sick as her home country goes through war.
The Rev. Vasyl Sendeha, priest at Saints Peter and Paul Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Palos Park, said Nahornaia has been coming to the church for Mass and for English language classes. Sendeha helped translate the interview with Nahornaia.
At 8 a.m. March 3, Nahornaia said her son called her to let her know that he, his wife and three children were planning to leave Ukraine because the Russians were advancing.
Her son lived just outside Chernihiv, which is near the border with Russia and Belarus, so Nahornaia told him she would bring them food and diapers for their newborn.
During the one-hour walk to her son’s house, Nahornaia called her husband. They had planned to leave the country by car, but when their car wouldn’t start they agreed to meet at the hospital, where she worked as a pharmacist, to come up with a new plan, she said.
But on her walk back, Nahornaia said the bombing and shooting started to intensify.
At about noon, her husband told her over the phone he made it to the hospital and asked her to let him into the basement, where the nurses were hiding. Nahornaia was still walking and could see the hospital in front of her.
But then the ground began to shake, rockets hit the hospital building and the apartment building across the street and smoke filled the air, she said.
Nahornaia said she fell to the ground in terror.
“About six rockets flew in. It was so loud and so much smoke and it got dark,” she said, via Sendeha’s translation.
The phone line disconnected. Nahornaia said she called her husband back multiple times but there was no answer.
Nahornaia said she searched for her husband but the scene was chaos with people helping others and debris covering the ground. She felt in that moment her husband didn’t make it.
Ultimately, Nahornaia said, she was able to get a ride with a man who took her to area hospitals to see if someone helped her husband and took him there for care. The next day, she checked morgues.
It wasn’t until May, when her in-laws called her, that she learned his body was identified from the bombing at the hospital.
“She stayed as long as she could to find him or his body,” Sendeha said. “She was still waiting that maybe he would show up, but nothing.”
Nahornaia said she was in her apartment on March 5 when three men broke in and robbed her of her life savings, the equivalent of $20,000.
The next night, her apartment building was bombed and the roof was damaged. Nahornaia said. She has been sleeping in the building’s basement, so she survived.
On March 7, Nahornaia left her home after her son made arrangements for her to drive with a woman who was headed toward Kyiv. The drive was stressful, Nahornaia said, because there was only one road available and it was under constant bombing and shelling.
In hindsight, Nahornaia said she is glad she left when she did because the Russians completely surrounded Chernihiv by March 8.
Ultimately, she made it to Ternopil, in Western Ukraine, and stayed for two months. That’s when her brother-in-law told her she should go to the U.S. to stay with her nephew.
She was granted two-year refugee status in the U.S. through the Uniting for Ukraine program and came here Aug. 1. At her nephew’s house, she babysits his son and helps around the house.
“They have a beautiful family. I am very lucky,”
Nahornaia said.
She came with one suitcase and made sure to pack family photos and important documents. Nahornaia said she specifically made sure to pack her pharmacist license and hopes to one day get a job in a U.S. pharmacy.
Right now, she’s taking English classes at Moraine Valley Community College, Nahornaia said.
Attending Saints Peter and Paul Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Palos Park has given her a home and sense of community, she said. In Ukraine, she had a lot of friends and the Palos Park church gives her the opportunity to be social and make new friends, she said.
While she’s homesick, Nahornaia said she doesn’t believe she’ll live in Ukraine again because she has nothing to go back to. But she has friends in Ukraine and she said she would like to visit them again.
Nahornaia hopes to be able to stay in the U.S.
“She’s happy here,” she said, with Sendeha translating.